The team will conduct a search for a permanent replacement later in the year.

Cincinnati Reds manager Bryan Price (38) walks out to take Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Sal Romano (47) (not pictured) out of the game in the fifth inning during the National League baseball game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds, Thursday, April 12, 2018, at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. (Photo: Kareem Elgazzar/The Enquirer)

The team will conduct a search for a permanent replacement later in the year.

“We’re going to hit the ground running (Friday) with Jim in place and a couple of new members of the staff,” said President of Baseball Operations Dick Williams. "We’re very focused on creating a sense of urgency to perform now. We talked about rebuilding. There are things going on away from the field and in the farm system and investments in the franchise. But when guys show up for work every day, they need to have a sense of urgency to win that day. They need to take care of details on the field. They need to play hard and play it right. That we can control.

“We know they can go that way. That’s the short-term immediate focus.”

Tuesday’s 2-0 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers might have been the game that pushed the Reds toward the move. The club had a runner at third and no outs in the first inning and did not score.

Jose Peraza and Adam Duvall could have gotten the run in with a ground ball or a fly out.

That led to the Reds' 15th loss in 18 games – the worst start in the franchise history. Price took the fall, but he was playing with a team that the front office gave him. The Reds have hit .220 with little power, and pitching has not improved much from last year when it was the worst in the National League.

Williams accepts that the start is a reflection on the front office as well.

“We all need to take our share of the blame in this,” Williams said. “This is an organizational disappointment. Nobody in here feels Bryan or Mack is a scapegoat for what happened. That is just a first step in a process of making this right and trying to fix things.

“The players, the coaches, the front office, we all have to look at our mistakes and learn from them and get better. I certainly accept the decisions in the front office that worked. The coaches look at themselves and see what they can do to get more out of these players. And I think the players need to look at themselves. We all take ownership."

His message to the players? He used that term again.

"They need to control what they can control," he said. “They should feel a sense of urgency about it. They need to understand that some of the play we saw in the first couple of weeks wasn’t getting it done.”

Williams and special advisor Walt Jocketty met with Price and Jenkins in St. Louis Wednesday night.

“We expressed our gratitude for what these guys had done – these are really good people, good baseball,” Williams said. “We had a very good discussion. Both handled it like professionals as you would expect.”

Price declined to comment for now through a Reds spokesman.

Williams and Jocketty were on the first leg of the trip to Milwaukee. Nothing happened there to trigger the move.

“This is a culmination of a lot of things,” Williams said. “It was not a reaction to any specific thing. We felt like we had to be proactive and start the process of getting fixed what needs to be fixed."

Riggleman, 65, has been with the Reds since 2012. He’s served the last three years as Price’s bench coach. He was glad for the chance to manage again.

“It’s not the circumstances that anybody wants to get the job under,” Riggleman said. “Bryan Price is a great man, a great friend, so I’m concerned about Bryan. As Dick said, the responsibility of Bryan not being here falls on all of us. The coaches, which I was one, everybody involved. It signifies we weren’t getting it done. Now let’s move on. I happen to be the voice that the players will be hearing from. I look forward to moving forward.”

This is the fourth time Riggleman has been named interim manager. His plan for when he takes over Friday for the first of three games with the Cardinals in St. Louis?

“Just to try and see if we can win some ballgames – as simple as that,” he said. “We feel like we’ve got talent out there. Keep expressing to the players and the coaches that we’re going to get this thing turned around. Be positive and see if we can focus on details. I’m not specifically a pitching person and certainly not a hitting coach.

“I’ll try to stress the details of the game, which is what Bryan was trying to do. But an exclamation point on the details of the game. The hitting and pitching – the two biggest areas of the game – they have to take care of themselves. We coaches and managers can really try to pick up a win here and there with some things we stress pregame.”

This is only the second time the Reds have had an in-season managerial change under the Castellini ownership. Jerry Narron was fired after 82 games in the 2007 season and replaced by Pete Mackanin. They finished 40-39 under Mackanin.

So the team got a boost by the change.

But Mackanin was a placeholder. He was never seriously considered for the permanent job.

That seems to be the case with Riggleman, although Riggleman has 12 years of the managerial experience in the majors. He last managed the Washington Nationals in 2011.

Williams did not say how long the process would take to find a permanent replacement.

“It would be premature to set a timetable,” he said. “He going to go through a thorough and exhaustive process. We have some internal candidates. The candidates outside the organization won’t be available until later.

It was assumed John Farrell was the manager-in-waiting when he was hired. But Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported that Farrell’s contract with the Reds prohibited that.

Some expected Barry Larkin as a midseason replacement. The front office wasn’t happy with some things he said in the offseason about wanting the job and questioning the baseball operations structure.

Price was in his fifth year as Reds manager. He was 279-387.

He was working on a one-year contract. Jenkins was in his 32nd year in the organization and his seventh on the major league staff. He was promoted in the middle of the 2016 season to pitching coach.